Speaker 1: But they've been several stories over the last few weeks
Speaker 1: about problems at our airports. A couple of weeks ago
Speaker 1: you heard from the Airlines Association of Southern Africa. They
Speaker 1: explained that problems at airports were costing airlines of fortune.
Speaker 1: Planes were delayed, sometimes canceled. But you, as a passenger,
Speaker 1: what are your rights when this happens? Lindon Burns is
Speaker 1: managing director at Plane talking Lindon, good evening, what happens
Speaker 1: to passengers, particularly when a flight is delayed overnight? I mean,
Speaker 1: is there an obligation for the airline to provide them
Speaker 1: some kind of accommodation?
Speaker 2: It must cost a fortune, Hi, Steven, And to everyone
Speaker 2: who's listening, that's evening. The short there is no short answer.
Speaker 2: I was going to say the short answer is, but
Speaker 2: there isn't one. It depends on what's caused the delay,
Speaker 2: and it also depends on what type of ticket you've purchased.
Speaker 2: So if the delay is the result of something within
Speaker 2: the airline's control, you know, was it something that they
Speaker 2: caused to occur, then you could claim some form of compensation,
Speaker 2: and they may well need to provide compensation in the
Speaker 2: form of accommodation and meals if it's something that's not
Speaker 2: with parton me within the airlines control, if it's something,
Speaker 2: for example, a medical emergency that led to a delay
Speaker 2: or a weather delay, or like we're like we've been
Speaker 2: struggling with in South Africa at the moment with air
Speaker 2: traffic control problems and congestion in the skies that are
Speaker 2: resulting in a lot of delays, and today and yesterday our
Speaker 2: Tambo with congestion a security lanes resulting in some flights
Speaker 2: being delayed. So those know they're Unfortunately, passengers aren't entitled
Speaker 2: a compensation from an airline. You're pretty much on your
Speaker 2: own in that respect, and the airlines don't get any
Speaker 2: compensation from the airport or the navigation service or anybody
Speaker 2: else either. You're kind of all in the same boat.
Speaker 2: The real thing, though, is my best advice, and I'm
Speaker 2: not a lawyer, but that is always familiarized yourself with
Speaker 2: the terms and conditions of your ticket. If you bought
Speaker 2: your ticket in South Africa, you may be entitled to
Speaker 2: one set of compensation. If you bought your ticket in
Speaker 2: the USA, you might be entitled to a very different
Speaker 2: set of compensation. Compensations even though you might be traveling
Speaker 2: on the same flight and sat next to each other. Sure, Also,
Speaker 2: if you'd bought your ticket through a travel agent, you
Speaker 2: might be entitled a different compensation too if you bought
Speaker 2: your ticket directly from the airline. And especially look out
Speaker 2: for those bucket shop airlines and the bucket shop travel
Speaker 2: agencies and the online agencies and things like travel Pedia
Speaker 2: and booking dot Com. Not to say that those things
Speaker 2: are wrong or there's anything wrong with them. You're getting
Speaker 2: a discount, but you're getting a discount because there may
Speaker 2: be constraints in terms of compensation.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I was thinking of what happened over
Speaker 1: Qatar when Israel and Iran we're attacking each other in
Speaker 1: the sky. Basically the skies were closed, right, and you
Speaker 1: would have had tens of thousands of people at a
Speaker 1: very very big airport, but a lot of people. The
Speaker 1: airlines could do nothing about it. You would get no compensation,
Speaker 1: I presume, And this your travel insurance. That's a whole
Speaker 1: different story. And you also have all of these people
Speaker 1: stuck in one place. I mean, how does an airline
Speaker 1: even begin to manage something so complex as that?
Speaker 2: So, first of all, the airport would have gone out
Speaker 2: of their way as well to try and accommodate. You
Speaker 2: don't want to have a public health emergency development either,
Speaker 2: So airports are meant to have emergency plans for those
Speaker 2: kind of contingencies, and the airlines, generally, if they can,
Speaker 2: in a situation like that, would try to alleviate any stress.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think airlines are you go out
Speaker 2: of their way to upset their customers or to alienate them,
Speaker 2: you know. And in a case like that with Katid,
Speaker 2: wasn't just the fact that you had tens of thousands
Speaker 2: of people stuck in one airport. You also had people stuck
Speaker 2: at other destinations or being diverted to other airports and
Speaker 2: other countries right across that airline's network, across the entire
Speaker 2: Katar Airways network, which is you know, it's quite a
Speaker 2: complex and comprehensive web of destinations, and so it took
Speaker 2: a couple of days to clear. But in those sort
Speaker 2: of instances, there really is nothing that in terms of compensation.
Speaker 2: It's a case of, you know, nobody foresaw that happening.
Speaker 2: It's just one of those things. Unfortunately.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny because there are certain flights. You
Speaker 1: always knew with an airline. I won't mention the name
Speaker 1: that don't exist anymore, but you just knew on a
Speaker 1: Friday that everything was going to be delayed. Now that
Speaker 1: I would presume is because of them, not because of
Speaker 1: the airline, especially if their competitors are actually taking off
Speaker 1: fun time. So could you if you can into a
Speaker 1: dispute with an airline about that, would you be able
Speaker 1: to say, well, all of your competitors were able to
Speaker 1: talk take off fun time, It must have been new.
Speaker 2: You would have to have sufficient proof to be able
Speaker 2: to raise that kind of dispute with the airline or
Speaker 2: with your travel agent. You know it, certainly you know
Speaker 2: something that people have done before, especially if you can
Speaker 2: show that you know other carriers were operating and operating
Speaker 2: on time. The other thing to remember, though, is that
Speaker 2: when we talk about a delay, a delay generally is
Speaker 2: something beyond fifteen minutes, So anything up to fifteen minutes
Speaker 2: doesn't really classify as a delay. We really only start
Speaker 2: talking about compensation after two to three hours of a delay,
Speaker 2: and even then, your terms and conditions of carriage may
Speaker 2: qualify or dis qualify you from certain levels of compensation.
Speaker 2: Or any compensation at all.
Speaker 1: There are other things, and I mean what we're starting
Speaker 1: to see it seems to be happening in South African
Speaker 1: airports quite often. So access charging airlines fees is an
Speaker 1: airport tax on plane tickets. I have to kind of
Speaker 1: ask where the money has been going of Suddenly we
Speaker 1: have maintenance issues and issues. I don't know if it's maintenance,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is an airport us do
Speaker 1: you know what it is?
Speaker 2: So I'm so glad you raise that because I actually
Speaker 2: raised the exact same question with the Transport Minister this
Speaker 2: morning and her media briefing in Parliament, because we've been saying,
Speaker 2: hang on, you know, we're all paying these user charges,
Speaker 2: whether it's to AX or to the air Traffic Navigation Service,
Speaker 2: and they're always you know, clients that don't have enough money,
Speaker 2: We pay them a lot. But we seem to think that,
Speaker 2: you know, well, I experience tells us that actually the
Speaker 2: service levels have been declining, but the costs are going up,
Speaker 2: and so where's the money being spent? A very good question.
Speaker 2: I didn't get a clear answer from the minister other
Speaker 2: than you know, she walked into an inherited the situation.
Speaker 2: She's appalled by it and is now trying to put
Speaker 2: in place measures to hold people accountable and to provide
Speaker 2: some sort of transparency on that. But you know, we'll
Speaker 2: wait and see.
Speaker 1: I presume that when an airline runs late and it
Speaker 1: does not pay a compensation to passengers because it's not
Speaker 1: their fault, the airline is still losing money.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, you know, for an airline, the pressure, the
Speaker 2: most precious thing upon from customers for an airline is
Speaker 2: at schedule and integrity of that schedule, because that speaks
Speaker 2: to the credibility of the airline and it's and what
Speaker 2: it's offering and what it's selling. You know, you don't
Speaker 2: go into a fruit and bed shop to go and
Speaker 2: buy frog veggies, and yet the second most perishable item
Speaker 2: you can buy isn't is you know, or that is
Speaker 2: for sale at least there's an aircraft seat. And if
Speaker 2: that's not taken up in the market by the time
Speaker 2: that the door closes, that perishes very quickly. And similarly,
Speaker 2: customer confidence perishes and the roads very fast. If you
Speaker 2: can't proven and maintain your schedule and your schedule integrity.
Speaker 1: The other thing that sort of sometimes I think kind
Speaker 1: of astonishes me with airlines is that you can have
Speaker 1: planes from a smaller airport are being delayed or canceled
Speaker 1: and there is no other way. I mean, you think
Speaker 1: Happington is sort of a very long way away from Johannesburg.
Speaker 1: There's I think one or two flights a day. If
Speaker 1: you get stuck there, you are really stuck.
Speaker 2: You are and you know again, I think airlines do
Speaker 2: their best to try and help their passengers to get
Speaker 2: to where they've got to get to, or to the
Speaker 2: nearest next point. This has happened before. We've seen it
Speaker 2: places like Upington and Kimberley. There we've got an issue
Speaker 2: where the airports don't operate after hours because they don't
Speaker 2: have sufficient fire and rescue. They've got enough fire and
Speaker 2: rescue resources to man one shift, the daylight shift, but
Speaker 2: not the evening. So you can't sharedule flights anymore in
Speaker 2: the evenings used to be able to before COVID, before
Speaker 2: all those firefighters took voluntary servance packages. And similarly, you
Speaker 2: might have other airports in the country that are just
Speaker 2: not equipped for night time operations, and if you have
Speaker 2: a delay, it is a problem. But there's really not
Speaker 2: a lot the airline can do in those circumstances.
Speaker 1: Lyndon Burns really appreciate the time, Thank you very much. Indeed,
Speaker 1: managing director at plane talking you through your rights if
Speaker 1: something does go wrong on a flight.